Research on the city tram collision at a level crossing

Abstract

The collision simulation between a city tram and a car at a level crossing is carried out based on the multi-body dynamics. Compared with the finite element method, this method has an obvious advantage of fast computation speed, so that it is convenient for the study on the dynamic responses and derailment mechanism of railway vehicles during a collision accident. The simulation results show that when a city tram is laterally impacted by a car at a level crossing, the dynamic response and the derailment risk of the collided city tram are greatly influenced by the boundary conditions, such as the mass and speed of the colliding car, the structural arrangement and the loading condition of the city tram. Moreover, in terms of the space limitation of the city tram, two measures are proposed to decrease the lateral impact force during its transition from car body to wheel set. One is to use the secondary damper and the other is to increase the secondary lateral clearance. The simulation results point out that the derailment coefficient of the improved city tram can be reduced by 52%, from 1.63 to 0.79.